


Fevered Truths

by Chamelaucium



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Awkwardness, Beorn's House, M/M, Pre-Slash, bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 13:23:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1551992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chamelaucium/pseuds/Chamelaucium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Beorn's, Bilbo's bathing is interrupted by the last person he'd like to share the bathhouse with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fevered Truths

**Author's Note:**

> Kind-of-but-not-really inspired by a scene in Game of Thrones / A Storm of Swords which I looove (you know the one, Throners, you know the one. Because Jaime and Brienne, come on!  ♥  ) and have shamelessly adapted. But it makes sense without having seen or read it, of course. Takes place at Beorn's house, after the rescue and the Carrock.
> 
> I'm not completely sure about this, but...I hope you'll enjoy it all the same! (I would also suggest maybe listening to [ this ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXrfqhc5pQQ), especially for Thorin's section. I listened to it a lot while writing. ^_^ )

Hot water lapped gently against his skin, the steam rising and making sweat bead on his forehead. The numerous cuts and scrapes Bilbo had sustained from their journey, the worst from falling down into that terrible blackness of the tunnels in the mountains, stung no small amount but the heat felt so good on his sore and aching muscles that Bilbo ignored it.

He was in an outhouse that Beorn had built with a large pool - which was almost too deep for Bilbo to bathe comfortably and he kept himself perched on the steps at one end of the bath. It was so big it almost looked as if it could fit three Beorns in - in his bear form.

The water was slightly hotter than Bilbo would normally have it, turning his skin a light pink. He sat still for a good while, enjoying the calm of being alone for the first time in what felt like an Age. Not that he didn't enjoy the company of the dwarves, but there was one dwarf whose presence he found...not disagreeable, but simply trying. Thorin may have apologised that day upon the Carrock, but Bilbo knew he still found Bilbo lacking. He was merely a quiet hobbit, his skill with blades stretching as far as his dinner knife, and try as he might Bilbo could never be the warrior or accomplished thief that Thorin had expected and wanted. And Thorin gave him no more attention in the days after the Carrock than he had before - in fact, he gave him even less, his sharp tongue no longer even bothering to give him a verbal lashing anymore. Bilbo would almost say he missed it; the eternal silence and constant disinterest in him was almost more hurtful than all the less-than veiled insults.

Bilbo looked at his soft little body, with the pudgy tummy no amount of walking could rid him of and so very far from his companions' that he had to turn away and reach for the bar of coarse soap that sat on the side of the bath. He was scrubbing at his skin vigorously when he heard the door to the bathroom open and he whirled around, not a little uncomfortable at having company when _bathing._

His discomfort increased tenfold when he saw who was in the doorway, walking slowly because of his injuries. He had removed his boots and overcoat and tunic, wearing only a thin white woollen undershirt barely covering his wounds, and his breeches, mud-stained, bloody and dirty; his hair fell loose about his shoulders in a way that made Bilbo catch his breath.

Bilbo heard Fíli's concerned voice from outside. 'Uncle, will you be alright by yourself?' He obviously hadn't seen Bilbo then.

'I'll be fine,' Thorin's curt voice replied and he looked back at his nephew. 'I'll call you, should I have need of you,' he said, more softly this time. Bilbo quickly turned back as Thorin shut the door, staring straight ahead of him.

When he heard Thorin's slow footfalls as he came closer to the bath he began scrabbling around, trying to reach his towel and clothes before he had to draw himself up out of the water and reveal his body, stuttering out an apology to the dwarf.

But Thorin cut him off. 'Don't leave on my account,' he said, curtly but with no malice.

'I - I'm quite done now, really,' Bilbo protested but Thorin caught his gaze and those sharp blue eyes bored into his.

'You haven't even wetted your hair, halfling. I don't believe one such as you would bathe without doing so.' He raised an eyebrow. 'I told you. Don't trouble yourself on my account.'

Feeling like a chastised fauntling Bilbo let his towel go and sank back beneath the hot steaming water, determinedly looking elsewhere as Thorin began to remove his clothing. His movements were stiff and ginger as he pulled his shirt over his head and Bilbo pretended not to hear to wince that accompanied the shucking of his breeches.

Eventually Thorin moved slowly to the other set of steps at the opposite end of the pool to Bilbo. The hobbit could see the red of his blood that had soaked through his bandages, more severe than he'd thought from the way Thorin had held himself, as though his injuries were nothing more than an inconvenience. But Bilbo could see the pallor of his skin and the sheen of sweat on his brow before he'd even got near the water and he knew they were much more serious than the dwarf had let on.

With his hair around his shoulders like that and the mist clouding around him as he descended the steps, breath hissing as the hot water touched his skin, Thorin looked _half a corpse, half a god -_ surely, Bilbo thought, he was made in the image of his Maker. His muscles were harder and leaner than any hobbit had ever dreamed of; the planes of his chest sharp and his chunkiness around the middle attributed only to pure, hard strength.

Bilbo watched in a mixture of fear and anticipation as Thorin stepped down into the pool, his chest tightening with concern when he half-sat, half-fell heavily down onto a step. Thorin sat with his head lolling back against the higher steps, sinking down until most of his neck was submerged, water lapping at the juncture under his chin where his beard began. Bilbo could see the red that swirled momentarily around him in eddies even in the dim half-light of the bathhouse, blood and grime washing off his pale skin.

'You're hurt,' he said, his voice catching as Thorin opened an eye and looked straight at him.

:::

He was afraid of him; Thorin could see it in the hobbit's eyes. They were wide and staring at him like the frightened rabbit Beorn insisted he was - something which amused Thorin far more than he would ever let on - and Bilbo looked as if he was ready to flee at a moment's notice. The hobbit had seen him kill, he'd seen him fight, he'd seen him be a leader; but he'd never seen him as himself. The thought made him strangely sad.

'Indeed I am,' Thorin agreed, closing his eye again and looking back up to the wooden ceiling. He kept his back straight and rigid as he sat there, unwilling to move and cause his wounds to spike in pain. Perhaps he should have let the hobbit go; he'd be free to at least show his discomfort then. 'But I'd be dead if not for you,' he added, not opening his eyes this time but he heard the little intake of breath from the hobbit.

Sighing, he reached up to the side of the pool where there was a set of flannels and grabbed one, pulling it down into the hot water and then gently, ever so gently, drawing it up to begin cleaning himself. At least the hobbit was good enough not to say anything about his grimace of pain, either because he hadn't seen it or because he was decent and didn't want to embarrass him. Thorin wasn't sure which he'd prefer.

When he reached up to soothe his neck he opened his eyes and lightly rinsed the skin, droplets of water dripping down the back of his neck and around to his collarbone. It raised goose bumps along his arms, the colder droplets on his flushed skin, and he leant down in the water again until he was fully warm again. When he sat back up again he was panting from the heat and the pain of his wounds and he decided to rest again, looking at the hobbit. He was fiddling with his feet under the water, trying to keep his splashing to a minimum. When he felt Thorin's gaze he looked at him before hurriedly turning away and grabbing his own flannel. He couldn't meet Thorin's eyes, keeping his own locked on whatever part of his body he was focusing on at the given time - his arms, at that point, all white and soft but not weak, Thorin had to concede.

Bilbo caught him looking and looked back down; he was too flushed for Thorin to know if he blushed or not. But he was more occupied in looking at his eyes, at the wariness he saw in them when Bilbo looked at Thorin. Thorin had been harsh these past few days after the Carrock and the goblins; they had needed force to keep going otherwise his companions would most likely have stopped and slept where they were, when Thorin needed them to keep on. More than a few of their number had received a tongue whipping from him, but it was nothing to the way Thorin had felt, his own wounds paining him and having to be the detached leader they needed and not their friend. For the most part, Bilbo had been too afraid of him to do anything other than exactly what he ordered.

The near-silence carried on, broken only by the sound of the water lapping at their bodies and the flannel that rasped along Bilbo's skin as he washed, still not looking at Thorin, until he spoke.

'You believe me cruel,' he said at last, shocking the hobbit and making him jump. 'You're afraid of me and you think I care more for my quest than my companions.' The hobbit said nothing but he definitely did flush under Thorin's scrutiny that time and his scrubbing increased in vigour, leaving pink marks where the rough flannel scraped his skin. 'Stop scrubbing so hard,' Thorin said roughly as Bilbo continued to violently rake the flannel over his soft skin; too soft, in truth, for such perils as he had faced on this journey, with only more to come. 'You'll hurt yourself if you continue like that.' Bilbo had frozen at his words and blushed an even fiercer crimson, before doing as he was bid.

'Why would you care?' he heard Bilbo say in a small voice, only just audible. Thorin looked at him thoughtfully and stretched, gritting his teeth against a wince as he moved.

'Because while I am many things, halfling, unfeeling and cruel are not on my list of faults. Some might say I feel too deeply, in fact.' He thought of his desire to see his mountain, his gold...he thought of his grandfather's sickness. A shudder ran down his spine. He felt so sickly, here in the water with his wounds stinging sharply and he would have made to move, except his head was spinning and he didn't want to risk either making himself ill or falling. Bilbo noticed the shudder and frowned.

'Are you well?' he sounded worried. 'Should I call Fíli?'

Thorin took a few deep breaths, trying to clear his head. 'I'm as well as one can be after nearly being eaten by a warg,' he said. 'And tired...'

Bilbo stilled and returned to fiddling with his flannel before self-consciously cupping his hands to pour water over his head, wetting his curls so they were plastered to his head. Thorin wasn't dizzy enough to not know that the stirrings of interest he felt weren't merely the result of a feverish mind. They were partly why he'd avoided talking to the hobbit since the Carrock.

'Are you afraid of the water, halfling?' he asked, hiding his feelings behind mocking words. Bilbo looked incensed at that and met his gaze for perhaps the first time in the entire duration they'd been bathing and he straightened, staring at Thorin with a set jaw.

'It's deep, and I'm small. Smaller than you. And my name is _Bilbo_ ,' he bit out, and returned to washing his hair with the soap. Thorin bit his lip; he _was_ small, _perfectly_ small. One of his hands could cup Bilbo's entire face... The rivulets of water running down Bilbo's neck and chest and making the skin - so soft, so smooth - glisten in the dim light. Thorin ached all over, and yet he _wanted._

He shut his eyes against the sight of the hobbit, remembering instead the wariness that constantly filled his eyes and body when Thorin so much as looked at him. Even now, he continued to be afraid of him - even in his weakened state. Thorin was more like a dwarfling than a prince.

'The first time I killed someone, I was fifty. The same as you...though not yet of age.' He didn't know why he was telling Bilbo this, was sure that Bilbo didn't care to hear it anyway, but he continued. 'He was a deserter and my grandfather...perhaps the sickness had taken him, perhaps it hadn't, I don't know. But he made me deal the blow. "Justice", he told me, but all I could think of was the blood, the _blood...'_ Thorin shivered at the memory and shook his head to clear it.

'I'm sorry,' Bilbo said and his voice was unexpectedly soft, but Thorin shook his head again. He needed him to know it all, to know that he'd killed, _why._ He _needed_ to tell him.

'I was on the battlements when the dragon came,' he sighed softly, breathless from the heat; Mahal, he was so dizzy… Bilbo's gaze was heavy on him and Thorin couldn't meet it. 'Have you ever seen dragon fire, halfling? The way it melts flesh? I'd never seen flesh melt before...' his voice cracked. 'But then it was everywhere. So much fire, and my people clinging to the rock, unwilling to go on until I had to leave them, leave them to be burnt...' he gave a shudder and Bilbo dropped his gaze, feeling uncomfortable again. 'I killed people then, on the road. People who tried to kill us, so we killed them first. Then in the mountains... You live peaceful lives in your Shire, halfling, but dwarves do not. Sometimes I see...'

He couldn't help the shudder that racked his body then and he felt himself slipping forward and grabbed the edge of the pool, violent shivers tearing through his body and he registered Bilbo calling out to Fíli and rushing towards him. He had enough wits left in his feverish brain to realise that he was wading through the water, the _deep_ water, to get to him, and felt small arms wrap around him, keeping him above the water and he clutched at the warm body, his anchor, as the door opened and Fíli rushed in.

'Help him! Master Oakenshield - Fíli, help him!' Bilbo's voice rang loud in his ears.

 _Thorin,_ he tried to say. _My name is Thorin._

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Please do let me know what you thought :)
> 
> Also, the line _half a corpse, half a god_ is a quote from A Feast for Crows. And it gives me so many feels it's unreal.


End file.
